If we reflect for a moment what art is--literary and poetical art in particular--we shall at once see how, examined in this way, it will be of use to us.

In the first place, then, what is art?
and what is the reason that it pleases us?
It is a reflection, a reproduction of the pleasures of life, and is altogether relative to these, and dependent on them.

We should, for instance, take no interest in portraits unless we took some interest in the human face.
We should take none in statues if we took none in the human form.

We must know something of love as a feeling, or we should never care for love-songs.

Art may send us back to these with intenser appreciation of them, but we must bring to art from life the appreciation we want intensified.